Yo soy yo y mi circunstancia: The Socioeconomic Origins of Machismo and the Macho

The simultaneous allure and repulsion of Mexican machismo belies its ambiguous nature as an identifying characteristic of the nation itself and as a phenomenon that some claim is unique to Mexico and others say is endemic throughout patriarchal societies worldwide. Macho behavior is defined as “vulgar language, sadistic insults, the utter degradation of women” (Peña 1991: 31), but a macho can also refer to “a real man, good drinker, lover, singer, fighter, brave and willing to defend what he believes in” (Stevens 1965: 849) and as a man who is “fuerte, feo y formal” (Najera Ramirez 1994: 9). The ideal Mexican man, according to folkloric interpretations, may incorporate elements of both these “bad” and “good” sides of machismo into their personality.

A variety of answers stem from experts in sociology, psychology, anthropology and political science make the determination that the concept of Mexican machismo is quite palpable in the lives of Mexican men (and women) and that the stereotype of the brute macho, like most widespread cultural assumptions, came from a source outside Mexico. However, the most salient answer for the question of the source of true, non-stereotypical machismo is that of class struggle between middle- and working-class Mexicans and between Mexicans and their historical conquerors.

If the stereotype of the brash Mexican macho was created by foreign observers — especially white Americans from the 1910s through the 1940s — of the behavior of Mexican men, it certainly did not erupt from the idealized male figure of the charro cinemático. The charro, a man who symbolized masculinity through his dramatic feats of acrobatics and strength in the Mexican rodeo, was idealized in Mexican culture during the presidency of Porfirio Diaz. Diaz developed the idea of the charro into an “invincible national hero…. thoroughly integrated with the ideas of manhood, nationhood, and power” (Nájera-Ramírez 4). This power allowed any Mexican man who emulated the charros to assume a status otherwise unavailable to him due to centuries of subjugation by foreign entities: he, as the charro, was a man who bested animal and treacherous woman alike as well as represented his country as something stronger than the rest of the world perceived it to be.

However, in the 1940s, during the rule of President Manuel Avila Camacho, came a bevy of melodramatic, heavy-handed and heavy-hearted nationalistic films starring Diaz’s idealized image of the charro. These films coincided with a surge of Mexican national pride during World War II and featured such handsome stars as Jorge Negrete and Pedro Infante. The actors in the films sang of alpha manliness, brazenly displaying their machismo through corridos, warning renegades of their cunning with pistols made in other countries (Paredes 1971: 221). Paredes calls these “moving-picture corridos” and claims that they aim at the middle class man, “a man who goes to the movies, has enough money to buy a car, and enough political influence to go around carrying a gun.”

True charros objected to the glamorized version of the macho in the movies. Yes, the charros fantásticos were “fuerte, feo y formal,” as the rodeo men supposedly were. But Negrete, Infante and the like were more photogenic than truly “feo,” brandished guns rather than ropes and sang canciones rancheras (known until the 1930s as canciones típicas mexicanas — Mexican folklore songs) to gain the sentiment of screen starlets and moviegoers. In addition, the creators of such charro films designed archetypal character flaws such as alcohol binges and violent outbursts — characteristics of the stereotypical Mexican machismo.

The charros of the screen sometimes used questionable tactics to achieve their goals, but right-minded people were more than willing to look the other way as the heroes fought their battles with wit, cunning and a little bit of deception (Nájera-Ramírez 5). Real-life charros were outraged, calling the scripts of such movies “glaring misrepresentations of the authentic charro’s moral character and tradition” (9). Not limited to film, the perversion of the pure nationalistic hero spread into the discourse of the working class — the concept of “charrismo” referred to “corruption, violence, and anti-democratic behavior,” and a charro came to mean a tyrant in everyday political dialogue (10).

The aura of the charro was further tainted by celluloid idealism because it removed the macho from the arena of the charreada, a showcase of talent that, in its early days, welcomed even the lowest laborers in the working class. In the charreada, the point of the competition was to “display abilities of strength, independence, and bravery. Consequently, charreadas were a means by which men of any social class might prove themselves to be worthy charros and thus greatly enhance their status as real men” (Nájera-Ramírez 3). By transforming the charro into a womanizing rogue who dominated both women and the Mexican audience, the nationalist films of the 1940s changed the requirements of the macho character and restricted those in the lower class from living up to the expectations of their culture’s overarching machismo.

Unlike the ambivalent middle class, who may not live in total comfort but are at least eligible “to carry a gun” in the literal and metaphorical senses, the Mexican lower class is not only subjugated by dominant nations but by dominant classes. Peña’s assertion that machismo folklore among the lower classes — which consists less of romantic, melodramatic national heroes and more of stories of women who get their just desserts — “legitimizes the oppression of women [and] plays an ideological role in class conflict” (Peña 30). In other words, lower class Mexican men, aware of the pressure to be macho but lacking the charm of the charros cinemáticos, affirm their dominance over women (and other men through games like “the dozens”) much more harshly and coarsely than Jorge Negrete’s firm yet noble grasp.

Charritas coloradas, or “red jokes,” cut to the heart of the lower-class Mexican man’s degradation of women in order to stress the superiority of his gender. The folkloric portrayal of women in the men’s jokes is entirely the opposite of the idealized faithful mother figure whose love will never expire. The treacherous women of machismo folklore are bold and licentious, characteristics strictly reserved for the unsatisfiable sexual dervish that is the Mexican man. The men lament that Chicanas are especially wild and “not even blows” could control them (33). One man states that “Chicanas are worse whores than hens,” evidence of a long-standing idea of superiority over Mexican-American women (33-34). Like Mexican men, Mexican women have their own culturally-dictated ideal to follow. Hembrismo, or extreme submission by females to males, is at work at the same time machismo urges men to seize power and show off their Mexican virility (Station 1972, Arrizón 1998). However, Peña suggests that there is more at work in the culture of charritas coloradas than gender dynamics. Insults, half-playful duels, fights and other characteristics of macho humor “could be interpreted as expressions of sexual deviance, interpersonal hostility, or even the psychocultural inferiority that Ramos and others have attributed to Mexican Men” (36).